Leonard GrecoFairyland

Leonard Greco, known for his neo-medieval paintings, sculpture and installations has a solo exhibition opening July 8th 7-10pm at Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park.

At this stage of Greco’s life, off center of a century, he is grappling with ways in which to express his “being-ness”. Unable to avoid the “who am I” question any longer, he is reaching beyond his usual studio practice of oil painting into diverse disciplines including fabric sculptures in the round. These “dolls” are fashioned by fully embracing the pre-conceived sissy element of this art. It is in this extension of his practice that he is exploring, his identity as a queer and terrified man; the specter of the pansy boy he was being given new voice in his latest ongoing project “Fairyland”. It is in this new series of projects, where paint, needle and thread give expression and validation to a long suppressed self-loathing.

The very name “Fairyland”, a word once delivered with bloody blows transcends beyond, with a message of empathy, compassion. pride, and he hopes, humor. Reclaiming the fairy has been empowering. The art he attempts to create is intended to express the spirit of furtive repression breaking free.

Leonard Greco is a multidisciplinary artist living and work in Los Angeles. He has exhibited national and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Pasadena Museum of California Art (2011); Clive Hicks Jenkins, Wales, UK (2012); Couturier Gallery Los Angeles (2014) and La Luz de Jesus (2016). In 2017 his work will be featured in numerous exhibitions including “Personal Narrative” at the Annenberg Beach House Gallery, Santa Monica; “Stitch Fetish 5,” The Hive, Los Angeles; “Pickles Galore,” curated by Linda Vallejo, Lamperouge Gallery, Los Angeles; “The Faces Within,” South Bay Contemporary, San Pedro and” With Liberty and Justice for Some,” Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles.

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Kristine Schomaker is a new media and performance artist, painter
and art historian living and working at the Brewery artist complex in Los Angeles. For over
14 years she has been working with various interdisciplinary art forms including online virtual
worlds to explore identity and the hybridization of digital media with the physical world.
Whether virtual or physical, the object-based work Kristine creates combines elements of
color-based gestural abstraction, animation, pattern and design, neo-Baroque and Populence.
Using installation, text, photography, mixed media, video and performance for her ongoing
conceptual project My Life as an Avatar, she visualizes a narrative/dialogue with her
virtual persona, Gracie Kendal. Kristine then documents her experiences on her blog.
In 2012, exploring ideas of community, Kristine turned a local gallery into a modern
day creation of Gertrude Stein’s salon of the 1920’s with a live mixed-reality dinner
party merging the physical world with the online virtual world. Over the summer
she also performed The Bald and the Beautiful in which she had her head shaved
as a statement to challenge society’s standards of beauty. Currently, Kristine is
working as an Artist-in-Residence through the Linden Endowment for the
Arts creating an immersive virtual environment which she is planning
to bring into the physical world via sculpture/public art work.
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